let me begin by thanking our vice-president, joe biden. and for your dedication, joe, to this issue, and for bringing so many voices to the table. while reducing gun violence is a complicated challenge, protecting our children from harm should not be a divisive one. over the months since the tragedy in newtown we have heard from so many, and he not have effective as more than the families of those gorgeous children and their teachers and guardians who were lost. we are grateful to all of you who are taking the time to be here and recognizing that we honor their memories, in part by doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again. we also heard from some unexpected people. in particular, i started getting a lot of letters from kids. four of them are here today. they are representative of some of the messages i got. these are some pretty smart letters from some pretty smart young people. inna, a third grader, you can go ahead and wave. that is you. [laughter] she wrote, i feel terrible for the parents who lost their children. i